Photo via Flickr/Creative Commons/Seattle Municipal Archives
Photo via Flickr/Creative Commons/Seattle Municipal Archives

We have another election coming up Tuesday, April 28, in King County, Wash., and this one could impact just how efficiently local emergency services respond.

Voters will get to decide on the regular tax levy for the emergency public safety radio network replacement project. The ordinance will impose an additional property tax of $0.07 per $1,000 of assessed value for nine years, starting in 2016.

To put that into perspective, let’s say your house is worth half a mil. That would come to an additional tax of $35 per year to support the project.

Is it an important issue for voters? According to King County officials, our system is incredibly outdated. King County Sheriff John Urquhart even told KING-TV that “both King County and Seattle are riddled with ‘dead zones’ that put everyone at risk.”

We wondered about the outdated technology and how King County officials planned to replace it. Thankfully, David Mendel, the emergency radio system project director, took the time to answer our questions.

Do you know yet what type of new devices will replace the emergency radio systems? Who will be the carrier/supplier?

David Mendel: The Puget Sound Emergency Radio Network (PSERN) Project will build a new 800 MHz voice radio network. Some of the new features and equipment of the new network will include:

  • Increased coverage and capacity. The population in King County has increased significantly since the first network was built. People are living in areas they didn’t before, so the network must be able to reach those areas.
  • New radios for first responders: More channels, location capable, encryption capable, remote programming of radios.
  • New dispatch consoles for 911 dispatchers, 46 sites of radio equipment, tower and/or building upgrades at radio sites, and 19,000 end-user radio devices.
  • Better interoperability with neighboring counties and federal agencies.

After conducting a competitive bid process from June 2013 to December 2014, the county signed a contract with Motorola Solutions as the vendor for the new network.

What technical solutions must the new system be sure to overcome (the dead zones, ranges, battery life, etc?).

Our current system will no longer be supportable at the minimum level of acceptability after Dec. 31, 2018. At that point we will be unable to buy new spare parts (they will have to be used), and parts that fail will no longer be repaired by the manufacturer. Additionally, technical repair assistance will no longer be available to technicians who maintain the network. Replacing the network will overcome all these support issues.

Coverage is complicated by two issues: population growth and radio dead spots.

The current network was built to cover the areas of the county that were populated in the mid-1990s. More of the county is now populated.

Radio dead spots are a continuing problem since the current radio system was originally built. Using new criteria, updated to current public safety standards as well as using requirements our end user[s] have asked for, we have contracted to build a system that will ensure that dead spots are completely eliminated or drastically minimized and enable public safety first responders to better do their jobs of protecting life and property.

The new system will cover 97 percent of the primary bounded coverage area (an area west of a line at approximately 1,250 feet above sea level all the way out to the center of the Puget Sound) as opposed to 94 percent in today’s network. Also, today there is no specified coverage on US-2, I-90, and SR-410, but in the new network we will have 95 percent of those roads covered.

Capacity is strained today, especially in times of emergencies. The new network will increase the capacity of the network to 30 “channels” throughout the primary bounded coverage area, and 10 “channels” in the three highways leaving the county to the east. Today’s network has between 13-27 channels in the primary bounded coverage area, and five to six on the highways.

What happens if the voters don’t approve the initiative? Is there a Plan B to pay for replacements?

This system is literally used thousands of times each day in all cities and much of the unincorporated county. It is critical that the system work every time a first responder needs it.

Unfortunately, at this time there is no other funding source available. Cell phones cannot be used because they are inherently unreliable, do not cover the areas that first responders need them, and do not work the way that first responders use voice radio systems. It is not practical to build the system piece by piece, so there are no “cheaper” alternatives.

Even if it were possible to build piece by piece, this would be analogous to building a car one part at a time and doing so would be prohibitively expensive. If voters do not approve Proposition 1, the County would likely have to consider putting another initiative forward for approval at some time in the future.

Ballots are due by Tuesday, April 28. Please be sure to exercise your American right and vote.

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